


Fool For Love

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [14]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Canon Non-Binary Character, Comedy, Crushes, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Miscommunication, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, Pining, Rita is Juno's roommate, Romantic Comedy, Twin confusion, Twins for comedic fuel, bear with me, but in a like wait there are TWO of you way, idiots to lovers, just like. yearning. funny funny yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26982820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Juno, as Nureyev had learned his name from a professor who insisted on doing a verbal attendance for the first few weeks, was the individual crammed into his unassigned assigned seat at Peter’s side. While they had yet to exchange phone numbers, that wasn’t for lack of trying.Juno was from the opposite side of the country and wore twice as many layers as Nureyev at any given time. His face had been blessed with a divine side profile and when he smiled, Peter had to make a mental note to watch an extra video on the subject of the lecture, just because his mind had a habit of flickering in and out of focus when Juno’s lips curved into that shape.(Free!) Commission for @traveler-con on tumblr!!
Relationships: Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 34
Kudos: 155





	Fool For Love

**Author's Note:**

> This one is pretty light guys!! Very rom-comish, nothing too serious
> 
> Content warnings for implied anesthetics, surgery mention, eye trauma mention, food mention

Peter Nureyev had a high school math teacher who he was now convinced had been the devil in the shape of a weirdly short and weirdly muscular man. Nureyev had been far too young and far too impressionable when he was told that scheduling his college classes for eight in the morning was the best possible choice one could make when planning. 

He had been younger then, yet to know the world weariness that made eight in the morning at college feel the same as six in the morning mere years before. He had been innocent and uncorrupted when he made that damning scheduling choice, and yet, his hand had been guided by the advice of the same dark spirit who had taught him matrices and told him such things would be fun. 

Peter had intended to look nice in all of his classes. After a week or so, he amended his intent. Instead, he would look nice for all but one of his classes. 

He didn’t need to dress well for another lecture on some hyper specific aspect of early civilization’s relationship with agriculture, as taught by someone who seemed less interested in the class than Nureyev. It wasn’t as if he had anybody to impress at eight in the morning. 

This decision was helped significantly by the realization that he spent the first month of the semester forgetting his glasses, and therefore, unable to tell if he had anybody to impress at eight in the morning. Peter could exist in a blissful kind of ignorance in which he pretended one of the blurs didn’t look suspiciously like an attractive classmate of his in the same day’s afternoon class for whom Nureyev went to the trouble of a full face of makeup. 

Juno, as Nureyev had learned his name from a professor who insisted on doing a verbal attendance for the first few weeks, was the individual crammed into his unassigned assigned seat at Peter’s side. While they had yet to exchange phone numbers, that wasn’t for lack of trying. 

Juno was from the opposite side of the country and wore twice as many layers as Nureyev at any given time. His face had been blessed with a divine side profile and when he smiled, Peter had to make a mental note to watch an extra video on the subject of the lecture, just because his mind had a habit of flickering in and out of focus when Juno’s lips curved into that shape. 

Most puzzlingly, however, Juno might have been in Nureyev’s early morning class. Peter assumed such a thing would be fairly easy to figure out, but he doubted he was anything close to recognizable without a decent outfit and his glasses, though without that latter item, Nureyev had no way of knowing that for sure. 

He had to assume Juno was not in his class, and rather, that he merely sat near a blur who looked somewhat like Juno. 

Nureyev attempted to test this theory on an October morning, which he found particularly interesting, as it had been the first October morning he had seen clearly in quite some time. 

A habit of studying into ungodly hours of the night after forgetting to do so for an ungodly amount of hours of the day often left him awake long after his roommate had all but vanished from the dorm. As pleasant as this time to himself was, it also meant any time he was forced to rise before ten served as such an unpleasant occasion that he often forgot his glasses atop his desk in his rush to balance the snooze button with his punctuality.

The other night, however, his body had given up on sustaining itself on more English breakfast tea than any self-respecting person should ingest in one day, and he had crashed into his shitty dorm cot fully clothed. As unpleasant as it had been to wake up in skinny jeans, the morning brought with it the blessing of feeling, for the first time in weeks, well rested on the day of his morning class. 

The walk to the hall felt brisk, rather than stingingly cold, and for once, he made it to the lecture hall with a decent level of makeup and a travel mug of tea in hand. For his own sake, he ensured that the mug bore only decaffeinated Earl Grey. 

That morning had been one of realizations. First, the realization that the brightly colored autumn leaves around the campus were more than smudges in the early morning. Second, the realization that the blur he assumed to bear a vague resemblance to Juno had to be him, for their faces were identical. Third, that Juno barely spared him a glance throughout the entire lecture. 

Nureyev didn’t expect him to, of course. Perhaps Juno merely just took an interest in the driest video Peter had ever seen regarding the evolution of the corn plant. Perhaps Juno was a particular fan of corn, something Nureyev would have known if he spent more time wearing his glasses before ten in the morning and made some attempt to show interest in Juno at all hours of the day. Perhaps he might have Juno’s number by now, if he had been less of an idiot about his scheduling. 

If there was one thing the corn video was good for, it allowed Nureyev far too many minutes to mull over this quandary in his mind, as if some tiny version of himself were pacing furiously in the space between his ears. 

When the professor shooed the class from the lecture hall, Nureyev was saved the trouble of finding some kind of conversational starter when Juno, or perhaps his identical clone, waved him down. 

“Peter, right?” the former blur grinned. 

Nureyev raised an eyebrow. 

“We’ve—” he began, though Juno continued. 

“You must be the one my brother never shuts up about,” he snorted. “I didn’t recognize you without the glasses, sorry.”

“I—what?” Nureyev sputtered, shame and confusion welling in his chest that he had nothing better to say but a few misguided syllables. 

“Hey, I’ve got a class right after this,” his classmate continued. “I’m gonna have to cut this short and run, but it was nice finally meeting you.”

Peter just blinked, ferried out of the way before he could ask any of the seven or eight questions broiling in his head. When he made his way back onto the sidewalk, the person he assumed was Juno, but hoped beyond hope might be someone else who happened to share his face, was nowhere to be seen. 

Nureyev wished he could have been less awake to think that over, but an abnormal gap in his usual mountain of work had allowed him a moment or two too many to think over the implications of that interaction the morning before. For as much as the person who looked like Juno resembled him, his smile was broader and his voice was higher, not to mention his outfit seemed a thousand miles away from anything Juno might have worn. 

Peter wanted to think that perhaps, this was some relative or mere coincidence, but then there came the issue of what his classmate had said. He had mentioned a brother, and more specifically, a brother who had been talking about him. 

Nureyev tried not to think about the implications of their interactions, and what he assumed were flirtations in his later class. Perhaps he had merely been making a fool of himself under the assumption his feelings were reciprocated, while Juno himself held no interest. 

He resolved that he would gain some answer or another by the end of his next class. That resolution received a few edits when Juno himself didn’t show up. 

This had to have been the stupidest thing to upset him since a combination of exhaustion, a fragile emotional state, and a particularly bad series of days had left him in tears over an epic poem written nearly three thousand years ago. He decided, however, that he was going to hold himself together. He wouldn’t be undone by a simple crush and a near Shakespearean level of miscommunication. There was nothing more that could be thrown at him to make his day any stranger, and he found comfort in that thought. 

That thought was quickly proven wrong when his walk back to his dorm was interrupted by a very addled, very disheveled, and very one-eyed Juno Steel walked around a corner and directly into him. 

“What?” Juno sputtered aloud. 

“Juno, dear God, what happened?” Nureyev gasped, holding onto his books for dear life for fear that his arms might give out and drop them. 

Juno grimaced, hiding his face in one hand. 

“I just got out a couple hours ago. I don’t think I’m supposed to be in class yet,” he tried to piece together. 

“Why don’t we sit down somewhere?” Nureyev prompted. 

Juno hardly nodded before Nureyev could begin to steer him towards a bench and pressed him into a sitting position. Juno blinked slightly, shaking his head and swallowing. 

“I’m gonna warn you right now, I think I’m not supposed to be like,” Juno paused to gesticulate vaguely. “In public or anything right now. Moving?”

“Juno,” Nureyev started.

“Sorry that I look bad. If I look bad. I think half of these are my roommate’s anyways,” Juno continued, his next gesture a vague reference towards university sweats that could have belonged to anybody. 

“Juno,” Nureyev pressed, a little firmer this time. 

“Oh,” Juno sputtered. 

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Nureyev offered. “First, I would like to know if you’re okay.”

“Not in one piece, but doing alright,” Juno nodded. “Full recovery on the way, and now I only need one contact.”

“You lost an eye?” Nureyev asked, just to confirm. Juno nodded once more. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did that happen between eight in the morning and now?”

Juno’s brow furrowed. Even with half his face buried under bandages, Nureyev felt his heart skip a beat. Juno had a way of looking adorable when confused, as if every line of logic that escaped him was a mystery he needed to chase after like some gentleman detective from a hundred year old novel. 

“I’ve been in the hospital for a couple days now,” he continued slowly, though a little more coherently, as if his confusion had given him more time to think over his words. “And I don’t have a morning class.”

“Beg pardon?”

Juno frowned. 

“Wait, do you have that dumb class about the ancient plants?” Juno asked.

Nureyev raised an eyebrow. 

“I believe so,” he returned. 

Juno let out a single, loud laugh before he managed to quiet himself with a hand cupped over his mouth. He shook for a second, faint huffs sounding when his guffaw could barely manage to muffle itself. However, after a moment of confused staring from Nureyev, the fit seemed to subside. 

“What?” Peter demanded. 

“It’s nothing,” Juno snorted. 

Nureyev opened his mouth to press, but doubted he could get much coherency from someone who was likely meant to be in bed, rather than on his way to a class he didn’t have. 

“If I may ask,” he began. “How did you lose your eye?”

“Freak hot air balloon accident,” Juno shrugged. 

Nureyev sighed. 

“You don’t believe me, huh?” Juno chuckled. 

“Of course not,” Peter returned. “Aren’t I allowed to be worried—”

“Why don’t I tell you the real reason over dinner some time?” Juno offered before Nureyev could throw off the rhythm of what he could now see was a preemptively meditated attempt to ask him out. 

“But—” Nureyev paused. “What about your brother?”

“Yeah, you can stop hitting on him now,” Juno snorted. “He’s the one taking the plant class, not me.”

Peter felt his jaw fall open. 

“You—”

“I’ve got a twin, genius,” Juno all but wheezed. 

Peter couldn’t help but feel astounded at just how red in the face Juno had managed to render him, in one way or another. Before he could meditate on just how hot and uncomfortable the flush of embarrassment in his chest was, Juno continued. 

“So would you like to—uh—” Juno cleared his throat. “Get dinner or something sometime?”

Nureyev’s face bloomed into a fond smile. 

“I’m afraid I can only agree to that under the condition that you get yourself some rest,” Peter pretended to sigh. 

“Takeout then. I’ll pay,” Juno offered. 

“You just lost an eye, darling. I’ll take that burden upon myself,” Nureyev returned as he stood, offering an arm for Juno, who gladly put most of his weight on Peter when the opportunity arose. 

“Whatever,” Juno sighed. “Do you know Rita?”

Nureyev looked over to raise an eyebrow while his legs became accustomed to bearing the weight of two people as Juno all but used him as a crutch. 

“I might need a last name to recall,” he returned.

Juno went through a brief face journey Nureyev wished he could place, though he knew confusion was somewhere amongst the sea of expressions Juno had flashed through, each as lovely as the last, even if Peter was fairly sure at least half of his face was still numb. 

“She’s my roommate,” Juno elaborated, as if that explained anything at all. 

“Do you think she’ll object to my company?”

Juno snorted.

“She came up with that line,” he replied. “I’ve been bouncing ideas off of her for weeks.”

First, Nureyev felt his face burning in a way that couldn’t have just been the work of the cold autumn day. Second, he felt Juno chuckle beside him. As much as Nureyev felt he should have remained flustered, Juno had a smile that was soft and fleeting and magnetic and a laugh that was all those things and more. Nureyev felt he could have stared at it forever.

For the time being, however, he sighed and shook his head. 

“Let’s get you back home.”

“Taking me home before the first date, huh? Someone’s forward,” Juno snorted. 

“And to bed,” Nureyev chuckled. “You can flirt with me once you’ve slept off the anesthetic.”

**Author's Note:**

> Woohoo!! I'm just proud of me for pulling that one off
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !! I'm still taking free (that's right! free!!) commissions for penumbra fics, so send some my way :D


End file.
